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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
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the fifth of Bhadra, Sukla Paksha. The Svetímbaras fast during the former period, and the Digambaras during the latter. The Paryushana this year (1847) will commence about the 26th of July, but by the neglect of the precession of the equinoxes it is too late by three weeks, like all other Hindu festivals that have reference to the solar revolution, and therefore does not so well correspond to the four months of the rainy season in Gujarath and Upper India as it otherwise would have done.
10. The last thing I shall advert to is the existence among the Jains of the confessional, and the necessity that exists of confessing at least once a year to a priest, and obtaining from him ghostly absolution. Burdened consciences confess at all times, and have various kinds of fasts imposed on them as penances. It is, however, only at the commencement of the holy season that it is considered imperative upon every good Jain to confess to a priest. I must own that I was at first a little startled at the discovery of this article in the Jain creed, and thought I must have made some mistake in interpreting the word Padikaman
